QVB to vamp in a dash of bold colour

Sydney's stately old dowager, the Queen Victoria Building, is about to get a startling makeover - a mixture of bold colour and new technology aimed at reinvigorating the centre two decades after its last revamp.

The QVB, rescued from near-dereliction with an $86 million restoration in the 1980s, has become a rival to the Opera House as Sydney's favourite building, according to a poll earlier this year.

But Barry Owens, chief executive of the building's leaseholders, Ipoh, said its upper floors were struggling and the complex now had retail competitors that were not there 18 years ago.

The proposed solution to their problem is embodied in a multimillion-dollar master plan lodged with the City of Sydney yesterday.

Ipoh's architect, Ken Woolley, and its heritage consultant, Graham Brooks, have taken a radical approach.

To improve access to the upper levels, the existing mid-building escalators will be demolished and a stairway reinstated. A new escalator system devised by Ove Arup would suspend escalators from a tensile "spider web" structure through the existing balustraded voids in the centre of the floor at either end of the building.

To increase light to the basement areas underneath, original skylights would be reinstated.

The other dramatic changes will be in the colour scheme, to be transformed from the present sedate and subdued shades into a kaleidoscope based on what is claimed to be a typically Victorian commercial scheme.

The Druitt Street stairs and lobbies will be painted in two contrasting greens, while the main shopping areas will be in white with a pale green ceiling.

At the northern end, the same pattern will be followed, in strong blues and brown, with a pale blue ceiling.

The central domed area is described as "a celebration of vibrant reds and blues, topped with gold leaf and separated with white archways".

Restrained it isn't. But the National Trust's conservation director, Jacqui Goddard, said yesterday the existing interior was only "1980s fantasy Victoriana" and the new scheme "tidies it up".

"The whole look is much cleaner, there's uniform signage and better lighting," she said.

The detail would need to be carefully managed but so far the plan seemed "really rather good".